


okay, so i'm the dragon (big deal)

by makemelovely



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bitterness, Buffy Summers Bashing, Canon Compliant, Character Death, Character Study, Explicit Language, F/F, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Resentment, and in this fic it doesn't, but she's a shit sister, dawn is allowed to have feelings okay, dawn is an angel, dawn is the cutest bisexual, dawn's life shouldn't revolve around buffy, fight me if u disagree, i love dawn i'd die for her, if u disregard the comics, listen i love her, mentioned Tara Maclay/Willow Rosenberg - Freeform, which i do lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-24
Updated: 2018-03-24
Packaged: 2019-04-07 05:59:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14074437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makemelovely/pseuds/makemelovely
Summary: Dawn Summers is not okay.//or the journey of dawn's self love.





	okay, so i'm the dragon (big deal)

**Author's Note:**

> title from poetry book crush by Richard siken.

Dawn and Buffy have their first Big Fight when Dawn is four, and Buffy is ten. Dawn doesn’t remember what is was about. All she recalls is crying heavily, and how red Buffy’s face got when she screamed. She thinks maybe it was about a toy, probably a princess barbie. Those were Buffy’s favorite. The ones with golden curls and big blue eyes and pretty pink dresses. Ones that Buffy could identify with. Dawn preferred stuffed animals, and she liked Buffy’s pig best but she _never_ touched it because Buffy loved it best.

 

Later, Dawn will cry because of this memory. It’s not real, she’ll tell herself, big blue eyes red due to crying. She’ll be curled in a bed in a room that will be too crowded and too tight and Dawn will feel trapped in the home she loved. She practically grew up here, but she didn’t. And then the laughter will start up, hysterical laughter bubbling up from her stomach and escaping from her throat. Horrible peals of laughter akin to the Joker’s will echo in the too tight room. It’s all because of those damned memories. Dawn’s memories are as real as she is.

 

That is to say, not at all.

 

_

 

_“Am I real? Am I anything?”_

 

_

 

Dawnie is fake. Dawnmister is fake. Dawnster is fake. Little D is fake. Dawn _herself_ is fake. The knife drags across her pale, unmarred flesh, and Dawn expects to see bronze. Or metal. Or anything remotely key like. Perhaps wires and brightly blinking buttons that point to her being inhuman.

 

All she sees is blood, bubbling from the wound and sliding down her arm. Dawn feels woozy, surprise sparking up her spine. Dawn stumbles out to the living room, dizzy and drained. Her whole body shakes, and she wants to curl in on herself. Wants to disappear altogether. Put her in a lock, turn and then dissipate entirely as the door swings open. The lock unlocked, and the key no longer needed.

 

Tara gasps, eyes wide and frightened. Willow flinches, corners of her mouth turning down and her pale skin turning whiter. Buffy turns, mouth dropping open. “Dawn?” Buffy utters, surprise lacing her words, and Dawn’s skin crawls. “What did you do?” She demands, anger ripping through the surprise like wet paper.

 

Dawn glares fiercely, anger boiling her blood and hatred sweetening the betrayal that clings to her skin like a shroud. ~~Her mother~~ Joyce wanders forward, tears glistening in her eyes. She is _so_ kind, and her touch makes Dawn’s skin burn.

 

That night, Dawn burns her diaries and flees through the window. If she’s a key, then there’s got to be a lock, right? Dawn pushes through the darkness, ignoring the very real possibility that she could die out there in the chilly night. At least then she won’t be a key crammed in a human body anymore. Dawn wants to laugh, but the lump in her throat won’t let her.

 

Eventually Dawn gets to the hospital, and her tears are like acid as they slide down her cheeks. Crazy eyes watch her, and mutterings in the room make Dawn want to scream. She just wants to know what she _is_. Is that so much to ask for?

 

Ben shows up, and then Glory does and-

 

-and Dawn has to ask. “ _Is-”_ Dawn swallows, and the whole world’s weight is pressing down on her chest, and she can’t breathe. _“Is the key evil?”_ She finds it in her to ask, and dread runs through her veins.

 

Glory smiles, and Dawn feels like she’s drowning. “ _Yes_.” Glory answers, eyes dark and greedy while her smile sharpens.

 

Dawn’s whole world ended tonight, and nothing could ever be okay again.

 

_

 

Apparently, Glory was lying about the key being evil. Dawn doesn’t believe her, and then Buffy dies for her so it’s whatever.

 

_

 

(It’s not whatever. All Dawn can think is _my fault!_ over and over again. That summer is the worst summer of Dawn’s life even though it’s actually the only summer of her life. Buffy is dead, and Dawn can only struggle with her grief. Sometimes she wins, but it’s a rarity. It seems the weight of her grief will never leave her, that it will only cling to her like an anchor and drag her down.)

 

(It does.)

 

_

 

So ~~Mom~~ Joyce dies, and Dawn can’t really grieve because Joyce was never really her mother. The funeral feels phony, as if the sun senses she’s a liar and decides to melt her.

 

It works though because without ~~her mother~~ Joyce, Dawn does melt away until all is left is the shining green that exclaims key.

 

_

 

Dawn finishes eighth grade, and she’ll be going to high school at the newly built Sunnydale High in the fall. Dawn will turn fifteen before November. Dawn hopes the Scoobies remember her birthday. They forgot last years because of, well, _Buffy_ but it’s fine. Dawn stopped expecting to be anything besides Buffy’s Annoying Little Sister a long time ago.

 

The only person who doesn’t seem to think that Dawn is a burden is Tara. They have milkshake dates, and they always see a shitty flick afterwards. Tara is a different kind of guardian than Buffy. While Buffy was absent and then overprotective, Tara is a constantly consistent parental figure. Of course, Dawn would prefer Buffy because then she’d be alive but you don’t always get what you want. And anyways, Tara’s stable and stability is nice after Dawn’s whole life (a year of being alive) has been wonky.

 

Willow is also technically Dawn’s guardian, but she’s never around so. She’s been terribly spacey lately, flighty as if she’s got somewhere better to be. She’s usually gone, and the smell of vanilla candles doesn’t permeate the air as strongly as before, and honestly Dawn kinda misses it.

 

Spike is never around, though. Dawn really misses him. He’s comes around but he never stays for long. He says that she smells too much like Buffy, and if he stays too long he’ll start to cry and he doesn’t want his Little Bit to see that.

 

(Dawn never tells him that she _has_ seen him cry. He cried buckets that night at Glory’s Tower but everybody did so it’s whatever. Dawn also never tells him that she misses him because he’d stick around longer and she hates the sight of his tears. It makes her feel like she’s watching something private, something she’s not supposed to see.)

 

Xander doesn’t come around unless it’s to fix the odds and ends of the house. He always tells jokes, but they fall flat and awkward. The silence after he makes one of his special Xander jokes is heavy, and uncomfortable. Dawn started clambering out the window the moment she heard him come inside. Nobody ever comes up to check on her, and Dawn starts to think that maybe she just doesn’t have to leave her room. Nobody would notice because nobody would _care_.

 

(The thought makes Dawn sadder than she’d like to admit.)

 

Anya shows up to drink wine and complain about how inconsiderate it was that Buffy had to die before the wedding. Turns out she and Xander are engaged. Dawn yells at her, shouting about how maybe it’s Anya who’s inconsiderate and whiny and bitchy because she’s having a wedding right after her fiance’s best friend was killed. Anya stops coming over after that, and Dawn doesn’t miss her.

 

Sometimes Dawn wishes she’d have died instead of Buffy. She doesn’t know what would happen if she _had_ died, though, so she makes it her mission to find out.

 

Before she can Buffy is brought back to life, and Dawn’s whole existence is splintered yet again. How predictable.

 

Dawn washes the dirt from Buffy’s hair and body, pity unknowingly bright in her blue eyes. She washes her dirt-stained dress, swallowing back the bile that slowly but surely crawls up her throat. Dawn leans Buffy’s head back, fingers delving through the dirty blonde locks. Her hair is stiff and caked with dirt, and Dawn has to use extra strength to massage the shampoo in her twice dead sister’s hair. She combs it carefully, tears falling down her face. She dresses her sister up in jeans and a white blouse. Loose, comfortable clothing that won’t restrict her too badly. Buffy is like her own personal dress-up doll, and the thought makes Dawn feel sick.

 

The only thing Dawn can’t fix are the split knuckles. Dry blood coats the skin on Buffy’s hands, and her knuckles are raw and red.

 

Apparently, Buffy clawed her way out of her coffin. Literally clawed. That explains the blood and the slight traces of wood buried beneath her nails. Dawn actually does get sick, sneaks to the bathroom and throws up. She wipes her mouth, and swishes some mouthwash around in her mouth before spitting it into the sink. It slides down the drain, and Dawn longs to go with it.

 

_

 

Dawn goes to school, and she takes some of the peanut butter jelly sandwiches that the Buffybot made with her. She has it for lunch in the bathroom, eating alone like she’s the loser protagonist in a teen movie. It takes three swallows and a swig of milk to actually get it down her throat, and it tastes terrible. Dawn starts eating in the library because it’s better to study while eating than slowly sink into thought of Buffy being alive again. She makes two friends, and three days later they find other friends.

 

It’s whatever.

 

_

 

“How was school today?” Buffy asks absently, staring blankly out the window.

 

“It was fine.” Dawn answers, glancing worriedly at her older sister. It was Saturday.

 

_

 

There’s this girl in her bio class, Rose Anderson. She’s really smart, and pretty. She’s got long blonde hair and green eyes. She always wears her hair in two braids, and her favorite color is blue. Dawn deduced that by observing how often she wore her favorite fuzzy blue sweater which admittedly looked gorgeous on her.

 

Dawn takes it upon herself to befriend the blonde, and it goes smoothly. Well, almost smoothly. The plan was to ask to be bio partners and develop the friendship from there. Dawn would wear her best sweater aka Buffy’s red sweater. It has memories attached to it, bad ones. Dawn just has to ignore them. She’ll be wearing the jeans she got last week at the mall, the ones that look good with the white converse and the sparkly star earrings. It’s supposed to go good, and Dawn even planned to wear _makeup_ for fuck’s sake. Okay, sure, it was just plain lip gloss but, uh, hello it was an effort!

 

The plan immediately failed. Dawn apparently can’t fucking walk properly. She stumbles when she walks up to Rose, colliding with the slightly shorter girl and getting her long brown hair stuck to her sticky lip gloss.

 

“Oh, god, I am _so_ sorry!” Dawn sputters out, flushing a shade of red that matches the sweater. “Really, truly, terribly sorry. I guess I’m just a huge klutz, huh?” Dawn asks in a self deprecating manner.

 

It’s lucky that Rose is such a sweetheart. “Girl, it’s fine. I’m a klutz too, so it’s a miracle I haven’t already broken the equipment in here. Hey, do you wanna be lab partners? I don’t have one because Konan here,” Rose playfully nudged the tall black boy beside her with her elbow and shared a smile with him. “Wanted to partner with Reese. Do you have a partner? Oh, god, I just assumed, didn’t I? I’ve been meaning to work on that I swear.” Rose rushed out, looking incredibly frantic and embarrassed. Her frown dampened the brightness in her eyes, and Dawn quickly tried to rectify the situation.

 

“No, it’s totally fine!” Dawn grinned, running a hand through her hair. “I actually do not have a partner yet so I will most definitely be your partner.” Dawn’s smile brightened, and her eyes glowed with pleasure. She set  her stuff next to Rose’s, glad the blonde had chosen the aisle seat so that when Dawn got bored of the repetitive lesson she’d already memorized, she could just look out the window.

 

“Great!” Rose beams, swinging her hair over her shoulder and adjusting her skirt. “So, I’ve written out a syllabus of all projects, assignments, and tests. Just to warn you, I’d like to do all of the projects and stuff in advance and just check over them if they manage to accurately reflect the criteria of the assignment, which I’ve also copied down. I could make you a copy if you want?” Rose offered, cheeks heating up as she realized she must sound like an overachieving nerd.

 

However, Dawn nodded eagerly. She needed a challenge to avoid being bored to death, and this sounded like an amazing challenge. “It sounds awesome. I’d love a copy, thank you.” The best part was that Dawn was one hundred percent genuine.

 

_

 

They spend everyday after school at the library, frantically writing down and creating presentations for assignments that aren’t due for months. It’s exhilarating to feel like you’re living off of coffee and old science textbooks. They have a test in two weeks, and Dawn is confident. That section of the book was _so_ twenty assignments ago.

 

_

 

It’s Wednesday that Buffy finally pulls her head out of her ass and realizes Dawn isn’t home at three fifteen like she would be if she didn’t study with Rose after school. “Where have you been?” Buffy demands angrily, hands on her hips as Dawn slides in the door just after nightfall. The walk from school takes fifteen minutes, and the sun had started slipping away ten minutes ago. Dawn would be worried about Rose if she didn’t live in a house on Dawn’s walk home from school. She had dropped Rose off eleven minutes ago.

 

“School.” Dawn replies airily, dropping her bag on the table and grabbing an apple from the bowl on the counter. “What’s it to you?” Dawn inquiries snippily, taking a bite from the red fruit as she leans over the counter.

 

Buffy flinches, the color draining from her face. “I’m your sister, Dawnie, of course I care.” But her words ring false, and they sound flat.

 

Dawn nods, and she bites down hard on her lower lip. She draws blood, and she hates the blank look on Buffy’s face. Her face is pulled into the perfect picture of wistfulness, as if she’s longing to be somewhere else. “Good talk.” Dawn announces bitterly, in the practically empty kitchen. It’s basically abandoned by all human life except for Dawn. Dawn isn’t sure if she wants to count Buffy because the older girl is somewhere else mentally. Dawn foolishly waits for her sister’s reprimand, and she hates the tears slipping down her cheeks. What was she expecting? A sister who cares what she does? A normal life? Ha! That’s practically a forbidden word in the Summers’ House.

 

Normalcy doesn’t exist here, and neither does Dawn. Not really.

 

_

 

Dawn wakes up at eight fifteen, and it’s Thursday. She heaves a sigh because fuck Buffy. She had insisted on waking Dawn up in the morning, spouting off some bullshit about being a motherly figure of sorts for Dawn. Sisterly figure, most likely. Dawn had asked for an alarm clock, but the blonde had refused to buy one. They didn’t have the money, and besides, why did Dawn need an alarm clock when she had a sister?

 

Dawn groans, and calls the school up, making up a story about how Dawn had been throwing up and Buffy had gotten so busy cleaning up the vomit. She stepped into the role of big sister Buffy, and _honestly_ , she was better at being Buffy than Buffy was.

 

_

 

“Do you want to come over after school today?” Rose asks one day after the bell has rung, and all the students are trickling out the door. She swings her backpack over her shoulder, flipping her blonde hair gracefully.

 

Dawn hitches her bag higher onto her shoulder, one hand wrapped around the strap of her bag, and the other hanging loosely at her waist. Her thumb is hooked around a belt loop, a sliver of her stomach peeking out between her jeans and baby blue t-shirt that she had swiped from the mall last week. “Um, yeah, sure.” Dawn agrees, wondering if anybody in the house will even know she’s gone. She swipes a strand of hair behind her ear, and nods. “Yeah, totally. Can you and John give me a ride?”

 

Rose knocks her elbow against Dawn’s, chuckling warmly. “Of course. I know your sister is, like, super busy or whatever and she can’t pick you up.” Rose strides out the door, and Dawn imagine her in designer dresses, stalking up and down the catwalk as cameras flash brightly. Instead, Rose is wearing jeans and a striped shirt. Nothing special, but it looks absolutely lovely on Rose.

 

“See you then!” Dawn calls after her, grinning to herself when Rose waves a hand in a slightly dismissive gesture. It’s just Rose’s way.

 

_

 

See, the thing is that Dawn knows it won’t last. It couldn’t possibly last. She’s too new and old, too weird and normal, too much and too little. She’s a _key_ , she can’t be a girl.

 

See, the thing is that Dawn still dreams of not being. She has no body, she just _is._ She floats above it all, drifting amongst the stars and sky and the cold lonely moon. She is the earth, the grass, the trees. The dirt and everybody and everything that exists and will exist eventually.

 

She wakes up, feeling content even whilst she cries. Tears slide down her cheeks, hot and fast. She wakes up longing for something she can’t have. She wakes up thinking _home_.

 

_

 

_“I didn’t want to leave her alone.”_

 

_

 

Tara moves back in. She makes Dawn chocolate chip and banana pancakes, and she puts sprinkles and a drizzle of Dawn Sauce (which is just caramel, strawberry, and chocolate syrup mixed together with a dollop of whip cream on the top). Dawn beams, and she makes sure to hug Tara extra tight.

 

“I missed you.” Dawn murmurs into Tara’s shoulder, squeezing her tightly. Tara rubs her back soothingly, tears pricking in her eyes. She smiles against Dawn’s hair, and Dawn loves this woman so much. She cares greatly for Tara, who’s been more of a motherly figure to her than Buffy, her own sister.

 

“I missed you too, Dawnie.” Tara whispers, hugging Dawn gently. Dawn doesn’t even protest the kiddish nickname because it sounds affectionate and right when it falls from Tara’s lips.

 

Dawn lurks around them fondly, her heart bursting with joy once she spots them cuddling. Tara coming back is the best thing that could have happened.

 

It’s also the worst thing that could’ve happened, Dawn later learns.

 

It’s quiet. Too quiet. Tillow’s door is cracked, and Dawn assumes they aren’t in there. She figures she’ll check up on them, see if they need anything. They can’t be doing anything rated R because they would’ve shut the door fully. Dawn nudges the door open, feet padding softly onto the carpet as she wanders inside. She doesn’t breathe, and the air is still. She wanders closer to the other side of the room where the window is. There’s a bullet hole in the window, and everything is moving in slow motion.

 

The scene is a grotesque tableau. Tara is laying on the floor, mouth open and eyes staring vacantly. Blood stains the carpet, and red is smeared all along Tara’s cute blue shirt. Her shirt is soaked in the area where the bullet passed through, a visibly noticeable hole in the cloth. Dawn’s breathing stutters, and she collapses against the wall, sliding down the wall until her knees are pressed against her chest.

 

She waits there, waiting for Tara to be alive suddenly, or for someone to come in and take her body Tara away.

 

She can’t leave because Tara would never leave her. So she stays, eyes glued on the horrifically bloody scene. She doesn’t think about Willow or Buffy or her abandonment issues. She doesn’t think, period. She just stares numbly at Tara. Warm, soft, gentle Tara who doesn’t deserve this. Who’s never done anything to warrant this amount of brutality. Tara who doesn’t deserve to be dead.

 

_

 

Buffy finds her there, dead-eyed and scared out of her mind. She wonders if people will ever stop leaving her. If people will care enough to start sticking around.

 

If she’s worth sticking around for.

 

_

 

“I heard about that girl who lived with you. Tara.” Rose says when Dawn finally has to go back to school. Dawn flinches, jerking back as if Rose has struck her. She might as well have. Tara’s name falling from anybody’s mouth who doesn’t know her burns her skin like acid. “I’m sorry.” Rose offers, and Dawn can only see it as the need to fill the awkward, silent void.

 

Dawn slams her biology book shut, stands up and goes over to the teacher’s desk. She grabs a pass from the teacher’s desk, and leaves without saying a word. Rose stands alone at their table, unsure and guilty.

 

_

 

Dawn heals. Tara’s name doesn’t reduce her to stony silence and  soundless tears sliding down her cheeks.

 

Dawn stops hating her sister, and learns to stop hating Willow. Learns to hate the ones who cause the pain. The demons, the vampires, the shitty people who thirst for blood and revenge. She learns to build a fence around her heart, and a gate is not included in the construction plans.

 

She stops hating how forgotten she is, learns to use it to her advantage.

 

She melds the bitterness at Buffy’s forgetfulness into the drive to do more. To learn long dead languages that two other people speak. She learns to be useful so that maybe the others will remember her.

 

It’s all she wants. It’s all she’s ever wanted.

 

_

 

_“No, you don’t want her! You want me! You want me.”_

 

_

 

For a moment, Dawn is a Potential. The blood in her body thrums with untapped potential, and she might be strong someday soon. She might be acknowledged by Buffy, she might be equal to Buffy, hell, she might _be_ Buffy! The thought is exhilarating, it thrills her. It means everything, and ultimately changes nothing. She’s not a Potential Slayer. She’s just a useless fucking key.

 

Amanda is the real slayer apparently. “No, you don’t want her!” Dawn shouts at them, heart aching at the thought of them killing an innocent in the crossfire. “You want me!” She screams, desperate to get their attention before they kill poor, defenseless Amanda. The realization strikes her then, horror bright in her blue eyes. Tears flood her doe eyes, and she chokes on a sob. She’s not the Potential, Amanda is. “You want me.” Dawn whispers, pleading with them. This time it isn’t to save Amanda. It’s for them to turn on her. To reassure her previous assumptions that _she’s_ the Potential Slayer. It’s selfish, and she wants them to attack her. She had been the sun a second ago, and now she was just one of the billions of itty bitty stars that didn’t matter. They don’t want her though. She’s useless to them. She’s the innocent in the situation. She is the one who needs to be protected.

 

Dawn’s whole future of fighting by her sister’s side crumbles to ash. It burns to the ground in front of her, and Dawn can’t even protest. She can’t be selfish, even though she wants to be.

 

She wonders if Buffy will be proud of her. Wonders if it really matters.

 

_

 

Buffy never does say anything about it to her. Dawn’s almost being a Slayer fades into a distant memory that only she and Xander remember. Buffy doesn’t act like the big sister she’s supposed to be. She doesn’t take care of her, comfort her. She ignores Dawn, and Dawn wonders if she can go back to not existing.

 

It would help her more than being Dawn Summers does.

 

_

 

Dawn goes to Yale. She kisses boys and kisses girls and wonders what she should do that weekend. Should she go out with Ann, or go to that party? Dawn lives like a college girl, a girl with mascara on her lashes and shiny lip gloss on her pink lips. She ignores her grief, ignores the part of her that wants to see how the Slayers are doing. She pretends she’s normal, like she didn’t pop into existence six years ago. She doesn’t know a thing about the things that go bump in the night, and that’s how she likes it. She does years without speaking to anybody related to the supernatural parts of her life, and she finally feels free.

 

Buffy calls her one day, and Dawn’s thumb hovers over the screen.

 

She pauses, considers her options. She chooses what’s best for her.

 

She hits ignore.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I wrote this to talk about Dawn, and how much I adore her. I love her so much and she gets a lot of unnecessary hate from the fandom. I get that her angst could be kind of repetitive but she /is/ a teenage girl who isn't technically real, her mom dies, her sister dies, tara dies, her sister neglects her, her family neglects her, and she's treated like shit by everybody. She does a hell of a lot for them, and she doesn't get acknowledged for anything she does. Also, I'm upset that Buffy never talks to Dawn about the whole Potential thing bc that was something that needed to be addressed. Thanks for coming to Ted Talk, lol. if u want to talk more about buffy or something hit me up at my tumblr @makemelovely


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